Jonny5
Senior Member
It's official. The Michaels are coming back to Canada.
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- Thread starter King of Kensington
- Start date
Admiral Beez
Superstar
The US could well benefit from a dramatic decrease in military spending. Instead spend those tax dollars enacting universal healthcare (the same those in the military receive), fixing the nation’s broken infrastructure and eliminate student debt and invest in the people.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
So it was always a sham, the communist dictatorship in Beijing seized two Canadians out of spite. Their transparency is almost toddler like.
DirectionNorth
Active Member
I think both what kEiThZ said and what you said are true; we have a woefully underfunded military, while their military is way too large.
Part of the problem is that without the US's protection, we'd have huge defense liabilities. The Arctic is opening up, and we have huge areas we now need to defend. I think that part of the issue with the US and the NW Passage is that they feel that they have a right to use it, because they are the ones ensuring our defense is covered up there. If we had actual naval capabilities, then we'd rely less on the US, and I suspect, their infringement on the Passage would be less of an issue.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
We can’t depend on the US to defend the Arctic or the NWP. And we don’t need to double our defence spending to carry our own weight at home.
DirectionNorth
Active Member
I agree with the first part. I'm not a military expert, at all, so what I'm saying is more likely to be false or true. But here goes.
Currently, the airforce has 391 planes and the navy has 29 ships in total, And our ships are on average, 34 years old.
We have a single destroyer, 12 frigates, 12 coastal defense ships, and 4 subs. I had to do some reading, but I found this about subs in the Arctic:
https://www.thesimonsfoundation.ca/...tic-limiting-strategic-anti-submarine-warfare
https://seapowermagazine.org/as-arc...cno-says-u-s-subs-will-become-more-important/
https://jamestown.org/program/the-role-of-the-arctic-in-chinese-naval-strategy/
If you want a military debate, I recommend the SSP thread, because I'm super-uninformed. But personally, just looking at news about Russia and China increasing Arctic navy sizes, should set off alarm bells in Ottawa, as we have a tiny navy that could hardly defend itself from them.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Wow. Not even a pretense of legitimacy or process. This should be a lesson for anybody who considers vacationing or working (or competing) in China - anybody is fodder for the Party.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
I’ve been to China five times for work, plus transited through Hong Kong on way to KL and Singapore. But never again, the risk of arbitrary arrest is clear and present. No Canadian should ever go there, including our athletes for the coming winter games.
Northern Light
Superstar
To be fair, the U.S. law that reached Meng was almost certainly illegal under International law {its extra-territorial) and predicated on authority to enact US law on non-citizens, on non-U.S. territory.
Something Canada does not accept as a matter of black-letter law.
WE do accept that we can regulate our own citizens in overseas territories...............I find even that questionable.
Do we think a tourist from a nation where Cannabis is illegal should be able to prosecuted for partaking here?
Yes, the pretense used for the charge was fraud...........
It was a load of @#$# @#$#
I'm not clear, based on the sworn evidence that there was fraud; but in order for there to be, you have to accept the validity of a law applying to non-U.S. citiizens, and non-U.S. companies doing business in a third country.
I do not accept that.
That should not be construed as being OK w/what China did to two of our citizens.
Rather, it should be construed as suggesting we participated in a very dangerous game to which we were not a legitimate party, and two of our citizens unfairly bore the consequences.
The answer to the American request should have been 'no'.
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Jonny5
Senior Member
You'll never get rid of tax-dodgers and money launderers who are not citizens of the US, but conduct and/or directly authorise business be conducted there, without going down this same road.
There are definitely trades offs on this. Huawei wanted to do big business in the US, but do we then have to accept that their most senior executives can flout US law so long as they never set foot in the literal boundires of the country? It's a complex relationship.
Northern Light
Superstar
I do not accept the right of the United States to determine how a foreign company behaves outside the United States.
Period.
Any nation has the reasonable right to regulate how a person or company acts while on their territory.
Do we really want to go down the road of China legislating which countries Canadian companies can do business with outside of China?
I don't think so...........so we shouldn't accept it from the U.S. either.
International sanctions are fine......but they need to come from the United Nations, or be direct actions (as opposed to penalizing 3rd parties)
In respect of money-laundering, the issue is simple by comparison. A country can regulate what you do with money made inside that country; or money you bring into that country.
What it cannot reasonably regulate is money earned in a third country and sent to a fourth.
lenaitch
Senior Member
One of the general tenants of an extradition treaty is the alleged offence has to be considered a crime in both countries. Whether or not Meng met that benchmark was still being determined by the judge. The Minister of Justice could have stopped the proceedings at a couple of stages, but then what is the value of the treaty?
The next item on the agenda is whether Canada will finally take a definitive position of Huawei infrastructure now that this little irritant is out of the way.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Next item needs to be Trudeau (and Biden) leading the Western world in a global and public condemnation of China‘s behaviour and a clear declaration that this was kidnapping. Followed by Canada and the US boycotting the upcoming Beijing winter games
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lenaitch
Senior Member
Agree, although I assume you meant 'condemnation'.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Fixed, thanks